By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Disney’s new live action take on their 1992 animated classic Aladdin opens with Will Smith as a mariner out in the middle of the sea. His two kids ask him to tell them a story, and Smith starts flatly singing an updated version of “Arabian Nights,” recounting the… Read More Review: Aladdin
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) It’s been fifty years now since the United States first put a man on the moon back in July of 1969, and this incredible human achievement is revisited in the documentary Apollo 11, which is made up almost entirely of archival material, including a bounty of newly discovered 65mm… Read More Blu-ray Review: Apollo 11
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) I have always believed that the majority of comedic actors have a natural ability to do drama as well, and there have been many examples of comic actors seamlessly transitioning into more serious roles over the years. One of the latest cases is that of Kevin Hart, who… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Upside
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The romantic comedy Isn’t It Romantic, which positions itself as a meta sendup of romantic comedy clichés before fully embracing them itself, opens with our protagonist Natalie (Rebel Wilson) as an adolescent girl (Alexandra Kis) back in Australia, happily watching the 1990 Julia Roberts classic Pretty Woman. But… Read More Blu-ray Review: Isn’t It Romantic
By John Corrado The third and final film in the DreamWorks Animation series that started nearly a decade ago in 2010, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World was released in theatres earlier this year, and is now coming to Blu-ray this week. This is a very good final chapter to an excellent animated… Read More Blu-ray Review: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
By John Corrado Liam Neeson’s action movies, in which the actor usually plays a father getting revenge, have practically become their own cliché at this point, but sometimes one comes along that surprises you. Such is the case with Cold Pursuit, which was one of the nicest surprises of the winter movie season when it was… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Cold Pursuit
By John Corrado Starring Mads Mikkelsen in a compelling, mostly wordless performance as a man who is left stranded in the middle of the Arctic following a plane crash, and finds himself caring for an injured woman (Maria Thelma Smáradóttir), Arctic is a survival movie in the most stripped down and literal sense of the term.… Read More Blu-ray Review: Arctic
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Werner Herzog sits down with Mikhail Gorbachev in his latest documentary, Meeting Gorbachev, which he co-directed with André Singer, offering a portrait of the former and final leader of the USSR that allows him to reflect upon how his monumental political legacy helped bring about the end of the… Read More Review: Meeting Gorbachev
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) A registered sex therapist turned talk show host, first on the radio and then TV, Dr. Ruth Westheimer changed the way that sex was talked about in pop culture throughout the 1980s. Already in her fifties when she gained notoriety, Dr. Ruth’s frank, no-nonsense way of speaking gave… Read More Review: Ask Dr. Ruth
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) It was a rescue dog named Todd that inspired filmmaker John Chester and his wife Molly to give up their urban life in the city and buy an old farm in California, a story that is recounted in his documentary The Biggest Little Farm. John was working as… Read More Review: The Biggest Little Farm
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Despite it being a smash hit, I didn’t love The LEGO Movie when it came out in 2014, an opinion that put me squarely in the minority. While the majority of people praised it as an inventive and imaginative animated film, and it did have a few moments, to… Read More Blu-ray Review: The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) is a fishing boat captain living under the radar on a small island, and making money taking tourists out on his boat. He spends much of his time on the water, trying to catch a gigantic tuna that keeps eluding him. But things change… Read More Blu-ray Review: Serenity
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Six complete strangers find themselves locked up together in a mysterious concrete office tower and have to find their way out of a series of increasingly elaborate rooms in the aptly titled Escape Room. The latest thriller from Insidious: The Last Key director Adam Robitel, the film is inspired… Read More Blu-ray Review: Escape Room
By John Corrado Starring Nicole Kidman under layers of prosthetics to make her appear haggard and worn, Destroyer is a crime drama that follows a rogue detective working for the LAPD who gets drawn back in to investigate a deadly crime ring, following the reemergence of their leader (Toby Kebbell). For more on the film… Read More Blu-ray Review: Destroyer
By John Corrado The 2019 Hot Docs Film Festival ran from April 26th to May 6th in Toronto. Below are my reviews of the films that I saw over the final weekend of the festival. My Dads, My Moms and Me – ★★★ (out of 4) Back in 2007, two years after same sex marriage and… Read More #HotDocs19: Final Set of Capsule Reviews
By John Corrado The 2019 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 26th to May 6th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. The Magic Life of V – ★★½ (out of 4) Live action role playing (LARP) provides a way for Veera, a young woman in Finland, to transform… Read More #HotDocs19: Seventh Set of Capsule Reviews
By John Corrado The 2019 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 26th to May 6th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Seahorse – ★★★½ (out of 4) Freddy is a young gay trans man in England who wants to start a family, and decides to embark on… Read More #HotDocs19: Sixth Set of Capsule Reviews
By John Corrado The 2019 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 26th to May 6th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Scheme Birds – ★★★ (out of 4) Early on in the documentary Scheme Birds, our teenaged subject Gemma describes her hometown of Motherwell, Scotland, where she was… Read More #HotDocs19: Fifth Set of Capsule Reviews
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) At the start of Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki, director Kaku Arakawa’s short and sweet documentary about the legendary Japanese animator, we see footage from 2013 of Miyazaki announcing his intentions to retire from filmmaking at a press conference, stating that The Wind Rises will be his final film.… Read More Blu-ray Review: Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The Brazilian animated film Tito and the Birds takes place in a dystopic version of our world that has been crippled by fear, leading to a mysterious outbreak of a disease rooted in fear that ravages people’s bodies to the point where they shrink down and turn into rocks.… Read More Blu-ray Review: Tito and the Birds
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